Homeschooling: Rediscovering the Joy

For twenty-five years I have found tremendous joy in the journey of homeschooling.

And then this year happened. A year of health crisis. A year of busyness. A year of change. A year of challenge. 

And, yes, Bekah's first year of high school.

For the first time ever, I found my joy waning. 

Oh, I was never tempted to stop homeschooling. I am dyed-in-the-wool! Ron and I are convinced that home education is the best thing for our family. But I was discouraged about our progress, about my well-laid plans that were going to pot. I was discouraged that I just couldn't keep up. I could not execute my plan. We were getting behind and there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it.

I even remarked that I had finally found a disadvantage to homeschooling: the fact that family life affects it directly. If my child is being educated away from home, school continues no matter what is going on in our lives.

But then the Lord used several things to refocus my thinking.

This comment: 

Karen Andreola left these kind and encouraging words when I wrote this post.

The cartoon may reflect how you feel but what the author of "Thinking About Home" says to me (between the lines) is that an impressionable ninth grader is benefiting from learning something valuable - outside of "hitting the books hard." She is Providentially learning what a loving and godly wife is.  

Those words were life-giving to a tired homeschool mama. They gave me perspective that I had lost, a right perspective!

This post: 

Staying on Track (via Living Books Library). The message was practical and affirming, including this thought...

All those "interferences" are part of my children's education, for the children studying at home are not removed from life in the artificial seclusion of a classroom, but are in the midst of its circumstances.

These distractions and diversions were actually a part of Bekah's education. Of course they were!


And this quote:

Found in one of my own blog posts, written five years ago.

Our aim in Education is to give a Full Life.—We begin to see what we want. Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. ‘Thou hast set my feet in a large room,’ should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking—the strain would be too great—but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We cannot give the children these interests; we prefer that they should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy.  

The question is not—how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education—but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?

~ Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series, Volume 3

A full life and a large room. That is the measure of education.

It didn't happen instantly, but slowly I felt the joy return! 

Do I still have academic goals for my student? Is it important to me that a high school credit stand for something? Am I still seeking to equip her for the future? The answer to all of those questions: Absolutely! 

But the events that would take place in our lives during this current school year were not planned by me. Our lives are planned by God, the Master Designer and He is in control of all of the details. 

I believe that He planned this year, with all of its ups and downs, for Bekah's good. He knows what she needs to learn. His curriculum is the best. 

I have made peace with HIS plan. And joy is restored!